MILAN, Mo. – The Putnam County boys were coming off a disappointing loss to Highland, and they took their frustrations out on their rivals from Milan, winning 82-42.

PC led by 25 at halftime, as the Midgets came out and imposed their size and will on the Wildcats early.

“We were coming off a loss where we didn’t play our best, and we needed to come into tonight and play well. It was key for us to start off early, which we didn’t do that well, but we got our inside game going as they just didn’t have an answer for Hunt,” said Putnam head coach Jamie Tipton.

“Hunt” being senior big man Deion Hunt, who had 24 first half points on his way to scoring 35 in about three quarters.

“The team helped me out dishing me the ball, and I helped them out getting everyone a bunch of assists,” said Hunt.

Trey Ream added 13 point to help the PC cause, while Raul Palacios scored 11 to lead Milan.

“Our discipline in our offensive execution in the half court worked well for us, we got the ball inside to Deion, and he was kicking back out and we took some threes and some went down,” said Tipton.

Milan got down early and was outsized at every position, but kept attacking the basket even late when the back-ups were in.

“They play hard and they don’t quit. All year they have never given up, I had a more talented team last year that gave up. These boys have never given up. We maybe are lacking some in height and we may take some beatings, but we’re going to make sure people know they have been in a ball game,” said Milan head coach John Wood.

A head coach can always find something that needs improving on, even when your team wins by 40.

“Defense, when we switched into our 1-3-1 it just wasn’t there for us, we need to work on that some more. We have been mostly a 2-3 team, and we ran that pretty well, but as an overall theme we just need to play defense better,” said Tipton.

Putnam hosts Brookfield on Dec 20 before they play in the NCMC Shootout.

Milan will take some time off and re-group, as they don’t play again until Dec. 28.